


domesticity (or, plans you never think of making)

by Leyenn



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: 5 Things, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Multi, Polyamory, Polyandry, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 19:00:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1358401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five domestic situations they had to deal with, in roughly chronological order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	domesticity (or, plans you never think of making)

**1.**

Jack hangs his foot experimentally over the side of the mattress, under the overlarge duvet that can't quite make up for the fact that he's got less space right now than in his bunk on base. He grunts and opens his eyes.

"That's it. I'm done with this."

Daniel looks up at him over Carter's messy blonde hair, dead to the world between them since her head hit the pillow. She's close enough that he can feel the heat of her all along his left side, her breath against his shoulder. He can't deny a certain appreciation for the situation, but it can't quite make up for the fact that for the third time this week, he's being thwarted by an inanimate object. It doesn't help that he's still got a few more bruises than usual from their last mission, and he knows Carter has too, so for once he's really not that eager to fit himself up against her.

Daniel's expression is one of amusement more than anything; his voice is just a mild hint of curiosity swimming in a sea of sleepy calm. "Something we said?"

He rolls his eyes in return. "This bed is not big enough."

"You know, I'd noticed that."

"It's getting to be a problem."

Daniel lies back down. "I'd noticed that, too."

"In fact, I'd say it's a problem right now."

"Well, there's not much I can do about it _right now_ , Jack."

"Why didn't we see this coming?" If he stretches, he can put his foot on the floor. This is definitely a safety risk. As team leader, he should be making his team aware of all the safety risks in any situation.

Daniel sighs. "Are you likely to stop complaining any time tonight?"

"I'll try and brain myself on the dresser for you when I fall, how's that?"

There's a loud sigh, movement somewhere in the further reaches of the mattress, and then a dim rectangle of light appears over at the other side of the bed. He frowns. He was only asleep a few hours, but it's a few hours they all needed.

"Daniel?"

"Jack?"

"Were you _working_?"

Daniel pauses; if Jack could see his face, he's pretty damn sure it would be that shifty expression Daniel's so good at. "Does checking email count?"

" _Yes._ "

Daniel clears his throat. "Where do you think Sam bought her bed?"

"American Signature. The one on Fifth." He resists the urge to try and stretch the remembered twinge out of his back. There's little enough room to move as it is. Daniel's fingers dance over the keyboard; he can hear the soft clicking noises.

"Six feet good enough for you?"

He grins. Daniel snorts into the momentary silence.

"Keep dreaming, Jack."

He hangs his foot out to the side again, measuring the distance. "Just go for the biggest they have."

Daniel types something else, taps the touchpad. "You think a king would fit in here?"

"We can rearrange. Carter won't mind." He looks at her, but she's still soundly asleep with her face pressed into the pillow. One particularly startling bruise stands out on her forehead - a spectacular yellow-edged flowering of purple right on her hairline. He trusts Fraiser's opinion and her x-ray machine, and Sam's been brightly insisting that she's fine for days now, but up close it's still enough for him to hear the sound again, the crack of the guard's weapon when it hit -

"Okay, here we go." Daniel holds the laptop up and angles it awkwardly.

He squints at the screen. He's not an expert, but it looks pretty much the same as the bed underneath them. "That's good. Go with that one."

"We should probably involve Sam in this," Daniel says, even though Jack can hear him still clicking.

"She'll make it a big _thing_. There'll be measuring and lists and decision making. We'll have to check at least three stores, end up back at the first one, and then in three weeks we'll be back from whatever the _next_ planet has to throw at us and I'll still be falling out of the damn bed."

Daniel doesn't laugh but Jack can hear him fighting it. "Forty-eight hour delivery?"

He tries to find a comfortable position with all limbs on the mattress. It involves rolling over a little onto his side, but at least the bruises are mostly on his right. "We're at the Alpha Site until Tuesday."

"Next week then. They must have scheduled delivery here somewhere..." Daniel clicks a few things, murmurs a quiet "aha," then clicks again, types something. Clicks. Types. Another two sets of clicks, then there's a pause.

"Four seven two," Jack says, helpfully.

"Thanks." Daniel clicks again. "Delivery on Thursday evening?"

"We'll get T over. Have a flat pack party."

"I put the order in Sam's name." Daniel shuts the laptop and lowers it back over the edge of the bed from whence it came.

"Of course you did." Not a question they want asked, why either of them would be having bedroom furniture delivered to Carter's house. He's aware he should probably say something approving of the caution, but he's tired and really, he's starting to hate that they need to do things like that.

"Of course I did." Daniel's voice has that affectionate, knowing tone that means Jack might as well think entirely out loud; his thoughts are obvious enough. "Until then I guess we just make do," Daniel adds, just as knowing, before rolling over to curl gently around Carter's back. This time she does stir, sleepily nestling into his hold without bothering to open her eyes.

"Mmm... what's up?"

"We bought you a bed," Daniel says, nuzzling her neck, his own eyes already closed.

She frowns, not really awake. "I have a bed. You're in my bed."

Jack gives up and rolls onto his side, up close to her. "A bigger bed," he says. His hand drifts down, settling the curve of her waist and the rise of Daniel's hip through the duvet.

"Oh." There's a pause; he can hear her thinking about it. He can feel them both breathing now, her and Daniel, just faint bursts of warmer air against the chill of the room.

"Good idea," Sam says, eventually, and burrows back into the pillow. They'll probably have to tell her over again in the morning. Never mind. He'll have to remind himself to place a least one more order, anyway. If he can remember where the hell he bought his bed.

*

**2.**

Jack's house is quiet on a Saturday morning and the kitchen floor, even in the sun, is cold under Sam's bare feet as she pads over to the counter. It's nice, when she's not quite awake yet even after a quick, hot shower to freshen up after last night.

They're all going to want coffee after last night, too. She fills the kettle from the faucet: it's halfway through boiling when she hears the sound of the shower starting up again down the hall. She's smiling to herself even before she realises it, wondering if it's Jack or Daniel - it's too quiet to be both of them - and imagining them under the hot spray of Jack's shower, soaped up and naked...

The kettle whistles. She blinks, shakes herself out of the moment and starts the hunt for coffee components. Mugs are no problem: the refrigerator poses more of an issue, and she's just weighing up the options when Daniel pads up behind her. The shower is still running, a faint background noise, but she hears his bare feet against the tile right before he slides his arms around her waist and presses his warm chest against her back.

"Morning." His voice is low, and sounds just like last night. Her skin warms at the thought and she smiles, leaning back into him.

"Hi. Is Jack up?"

Daniel nuzzles her neck. "Mm-hmm."

She smiles. "He's out of milk."

Daniel chuckles. "Oops."

"And pretty much anything worth eating."

This time Daniel winces. "Really?"

"Yup."

"At least there's coffee, right?"

She points to the canister over on the counter. Daniel kisses her neck, then lets her go in favor of brewing the coffee. She leans back against the counter and finds herself smiling all over again, watching Daniel stand there in low-slung sweatpants and expertly plunging a cafetiere in the middle of Jack's kitchen. 

Jack wanders in as Daniel's adding sweetener to his mug, by the heavy spoonful. His hair is spiky and damp, and it makes her smirk into his good morning kiss, reaching up to tidy it briefly with her fingers.

"You're out of milk," she says, resting her hand on his chest.

"And about to be out of coffee," Daniel adds, shaking the canister.

Jack groans. "Tell me there's at least something to eat."

She holds up the half loaf of bread that's left. "Toast?"

Jack shrugs. "I'll take that."

"We all need to get used to shopping for three, I guess," Daniel says. Jack, opening the fridge, snorts.

"No kidding. Hope you kids are good with blueberry." He puts a cold jam jar on the counter.

Sam smiles. "You know me. Blue is just fine."

Daniel drops the empty coffee can in the trash. "You have a shopping list around here somewhere?"

Jack frowns for a moment, then disappears into the living room. Daniel shoots her a put-upon look: she smiles, shaking her head. Jack reappears a moment later with a pad and pen in hand and presses them both into Daniel's hands.

"Jack." Daniel looks at the paper, then back at Jack. "This is empty."

"I know."

Daniel shoots her another look, this time one that definitely says _remind me what I'm doing here?_ Sam laughs.

"Face it, Daniel, you'll do a better job."

"Hey!" Jack glares at her. She smiles and holds out a mug of coffee. Black. He looks down at it and takes a tentative sip, wincing.

"Okay. Daniel, make that list. Right after we finish up that loaf, we're going shopping."

*

**3.**

They can't get recognisably married anywhere on Earth - she's googled it a few times just to be sure. But there are a few off-world societies that might fit the bill, so they _could_ do it. Symbolically, at least.

Then it's a matter of who they could have there. Traditional family is pretty much out of the question - Mark and his family have no clearance to even know about the SGC, Jack's parents have been dead for years and Daniel hasn't seen any of his foster families in nearly as long. Jack is sensitive enough not to want to invite Sara to his second wedding, she imagines; that only leaves her dad, maybe Skaara and Kasuf would stand with Daniel...

"At least it'd be a short guest list," Jack says. She looks at him; he's lying back on the grass with his arms crossed behind his head and staring up at the sky, deep and black and alien, stars scattered in unfamiliar constellations above them.

She hears footsteps behind her; Daniel's voice, as he approaches the campfire. "What would?"

"Our wedding," she says, stirring the embers with her chosen stick.

"Oh."

"Hypothetical wedding," Jack corrects her.

"Potential wedding," Teal'c says evenly from across the fire. She smiles.

"I don't think it's that much of a potential, Teal'c."

"Well, you know, there are a few cultural groups on Earth who practice triadic marriage. Whether it's polygamy or polyandry depends on the specific cultural-"

Jack throws a dry grass stalk of some kind into the fire. It pops, interrupting Daniel's impromptu anthropology lecture, and there's a weird sharp burning-mint smell. Jack wrinkles his nose. "Any that're recognised by the US government?"

"Ah. No."

"Ah."

"And there's the little matter of 'don't ask, don't tell'," she says, hating every word of it.

"That bullshit," Jack says. He looks like he wants to spit. "Hardly a worry. Hammond'd be too busy busting my ass on fraternisation regs to care who exactly I've been screwing."

"We'd have to split the team," Daniel says. "No way they'd let us keep going."

"That is unacceptable," Teal'c says firmly.

"Hence the lack of potential," she says, offering him a smile in apology.

Daniel sits down beside her, close enough that she can feel the warmth of his thigh close to hers. "I don't know. One day when we've defeated the Goa'uld, maybe?"

She thinks about it. The idea of not being on SG-1, not being _this_ team, is not a pleasant one. On the other hand, the idea of commanding her own team, maybe - no Goa'uld to fight, the Jaffa free and the Tok'ra rebuilding; coming home to Jack and Daniel, still working with them all around the SGC, maybe doing more theoretical work than she's managed to fit in these last few years, helping more and more good come of the programme in a domestic setting... it's definitely not unappealing.

"Maybe," she says, quietly. Daniel smiles at her. He understands the most, she thinks.

The fire crackles, the smell fainter now, a thin line of smoke rising into the clean sky. Daniel pulls a pen out of his breast pocket and opens his journal; sitting this close she can see the neat rows of his handwriting, packed close on the pages. Teal'c pours hot water into the pot, makes coffee. Jack sits up at the scent and leans both elbows on his raised knees.

"We could at least have rings," he says, after a while, absently from behind his coffee mug.

Daniel looks up from writing. "You want me to buy you a ring, Jack?"

"Hey." Jack points his mug across the fire. "If anyone in this relationship is buying any rings, it's gonna be me."

"I love it when he does the alpha male act," Daniel says, grinning at her. She grins back. Jack makes a face.

"Both of you can bite me."

"Ooh, permission."

She laughs, leaning into Daniel's side. He closes his journal in his lap and puts his arm around her. His shoulder is comfortable after a long day of walking, and there's something about a human touch on an otherwise apparently empty planet. She leans more heavily into him, closing her eyes; smiles when his lips press against her forehead.

"Do you miss being married?" She asks it softly, not even quite sure why the words come out or who she's asking.

"Sometimes." It's Daniel's voice that answers first. His thumb strokes her side, and he kisses her forehead again. She can hear the smile in his voice. "But only sometimes."

"I used to think about it," she admits. "Jonas and I... it was never going to work, but I've wondered. Sometimes. What it might've been like."

"It is a unique bond," Teal'c says, a low rumble off to her right. She gets the feeling he's definitely dropping a hint.

Jack doesn't say anything. After a while, when he still hasn't spoken, she opens her eyes again, blinking slowly against the firelight.

He's still sitting there looking at her and Daniel across the low flames. She realises she wasn't sure what she'd see in his reaction, what his answer would be - he was married to Sara for close to a decade, they had a _child_ , and she's wondered sometimes too if they wouldn't still be together if it weren't for that one bullet. She wouldn't blame him for missing that.

But there's only a quiet smile on his face, a well of emotion clear in his eyes, and the warm fire between them.

"You wondering what it'd be like, Carter?" he says, quietly.

She smiles back at him. With the way he's looking at her and the warmth of Daniel beside her, she doesn't have to wonder.

*

**4.**

“We _would_ need to know who the father is, Jack.”

"Don't see why." Jack frowns at the smoking steaks and tunes the heat on the barbeque, eyeing it experimentally as he tries to get it right. Daniel thinks absently that watching Jack grill meat is like watching Sam operate on the latest mysterious artefact to grace her lab bench; he probably has the same look on his face when he's translating. Concentration with a side order of distraction that he probably wouldn't be tolerating if it were someone else. "Don't see why it couldn't-"

He stops tearing up salad and arches his eyebrows. "'It'? You're calling our potential child _it_?"

"She," Sam says firmly. "All embryos start out female."

Jack looks dubious, but there's also a look in his eyes that isn't the smoke from the grill; it makes Daniel's throat constrict. He wonders if Jack ever secretly wanted a girl, when Charlie was just a hypothetical conversation like this. If Jack and Sara ever even had a conversation like this, randomly occurring on a summer evening over making dinner. 

"Why couldn't _she_ ," Jack carries on, giving Sam a look as he says it, "just be, you know," a wide gesture with the barbeque tongs in his hand, "ours?"

Sam, ever the practical one, immediately says; "Well, medical reasons, for one."

"Ascension isn't exactly hereditary, Sam," he has to admit. Thankfully everything medically screwed up between the three of them is minimal and most of it's the fault of the Goa'uld. Both Jack and Sam fit all the standard USAF requirements and the extra that the SGC demands, and aside from his less than optimal eyesight and not wishing his constant need for antihistamines on another human being, he's a pretty healthy specimen himself.

"Exactly." Jack gestures at him with the tongs. "And face it, Carter, your kid'd be a geek even without Daniel's genes."

Sam isn't giving up so easily. As if she ever does. "You don't think she'd want to know if she had an older brother, once?"

"She'll always have had a older brother," Jack says gruffly. Daniel's pretty sure he's not the only one to notice the switch in tenses there; confirms it when he reaches over and there's no protest to him squeezing Jack's wrist.

Sam glances at him, slightly misty-eyed, and then walks over and wraps her arms around Jack's waist, resting her chin on his shoulder.

Jack smiles. Daniel does, too. He's tried to imagine, sometimes, what it would be like to just be in love with one of them, not the other. Have Jack just be one of his best friends, his leader in the field, and then come home to Sam every night like a normal couple. He's not military, there's no chain of command; they could tell whoever they liked, he and Sam, even if it would mean some awkward questions to start with. Hold hands in the street, kiss in public in the daylight and not worry about being spotted. Buy a house together, even. Have a child without ever wondering if she'll be biologically his.

A child who'd never have the chance to look at him with Jack's eyes, or flash him Jack's lazy grin over the breakfast table. Never have Jack as a father, to hold her when she cries in the middle of the night, or steal her away for some childish trouble when he and Sam are being too overbearingly sensible.

No, no matter how he tries to imagine it, the equation doesn't solve without all three of them, together, just like this: secret, yes, but still comfortable and happy in Jack's back yard, Jack cooking dinner and Sam still leaning against his back, providing a third hand to wield the tongs.

And Jack looking at him shrewdly, that lazy grin sneaking onto his lips. "Daniel?"

He smiles back and shakes his head.

Sam's mind is obviously away somewhere else, too; he catches her frowning thoughtfully before she says, "I guess it would be good to know if she's getting the Ancient gene."

Jack stabs a steak with the barbeque fork, holding it off the grill. "Have they found any kindergarten toys on Atlantis yet?"

"Probably." He grabs a plate and Jack drops the steak onto it. "I could always go and find out."

"Forget it," Jack says. "I'm not letting you run off and leave me with a pregnant woman."

Sam steps back and scowls playfully. "Hey!"

"You'll thank me later when you have two guys at your beck and call." Jack holds up a second steak, medium rare, expertly grilled as usual. Sam grabs a plate for herself, smirking, and holds it out.

"Good point."

"There's always the gene therapy, anyway," he says idly.

"We're not giving our child gene therapy."

He rolls his eyes. "It's perfectly safe, Jack."

"And we should probably leave some things to decide after the fact," Sam says, firmly. She piles salad onto her plate.

Jack prods his own steak, moving it slightly over the flames. "How soon can they even test for paternity these days?"

"I have no idea." Sam looks at them both. "What? It's not exactly the kind of thing I usually research."

"Don't go asking Janet," he says quickly. Sam laughs.

"It's not like she doesn't know, Daniel."

"She'll get _ideas_ ," Jack says, nodding in agreement. He turns off the gas and comes over to join them. There's significantly less salad on his plate, Daniel notices; notices Sam noticing, too, though she just smirks and shakes her head and doesn't say anything.

"She'll have to know, when it happens," she says instead. "I can't exactly go to a normal OBGYN. Unless they're stupid enough to overlook Goa'uld markers."

"No. Definitely Fraiser," Jack says. "When it happens."

It sounds so very... real. Daniel smiles and reaches over to take Sam's hand. "We'll come with you, too."

She smiles at him. "You'd better."

*

**5.**

Sam turns the pair of rings over and rolls them carefully between her thumb and finger. She's just slightly, pleasantly drunk and all she can think of is that her bare feet are warm, propped on the coffee table in front of Jack's fireplace. The smooth platinum between her fingers is shiny in the firelight.

"I don't know," she says, eventually. "Names?"

Jack raises an eyebrow. "What, so we can tell which is which?"

"I don't think it matters which is which," Daniel says thoughtfully from the other couch.

"The date, then."

"Which date?"

She tries to think. When they first met? The first time they had sex, or made love, or their mutually agreed start of this whole relationship - not, by far, the same? Or when Daniel first proposed, on P5X-45, or when Jack did the same out on the deck in Minnesota with Teal'c as a witness, or any of the half dozen conversations in between that have somehow added up to this, beers and warmth and three pairs of platinum rings in a box on Jack's Washington coffee table.

Places don't work, either. Any one of a dozen worlds would qualify, and would they use SGC designations or gate addresses or local names?

"I give up," she says.

"It's not a game. You can't give up."

She lets the rings sit in the palm of her hand. "We don't have to get them engraved."

"There we go." Jack points his beer at her. "Problem solved."

"Genius," Daniel agrees, and picks up his beer from the floor. Sam smiles. She's been holding the rings for a while now and the metal is body temperature, one resting against the other like a symbol of infinity.

Jack takes a swallow of beer and kicks his feet up onto the table beside hers, nudging her ankle with his toes. She nudges back a little harder, playfully. He smiles and rests his head back against the couch. Daniel smiles fondly at them both and picks up his book again, stretching out along the other couch.

"I'd like to, though," she says, after a long few minutes.

Daniel puts his book back down in his lap and looks back at her. "Me, too."

Jack rolls his bottle slowly between both hands. "Yeah." He rubs his foot against hers. She lifts her feet from the table and swings round, dropping them in his lap as he lifts his drink out of the way.

" _Ani L'dodi V' dodi Li_ ," Daniel says, quoting.

"'I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine'." Jack looks back at them both. "What?"

Daniel shakes his head, smiling.

"It is classic," she says.

"But obvious." Jack rests his hand on her ankle, rubbing his thumb into the arch of her foot. "Nothing obvious."

Daniel smiles at the concern in his tone. "It's not like we'd wear them in the field, Jack."

"Where isn't the field?" Jack says. He's got a point. "I got it. ' _One ring to-_ '"

"There are six," Daniel says, before he can finish. Jack flicks a bottle cap at him. Sam laughs, poking Jack in the chest with her foot.

"If you suggest anything from _The Simpsons_ , we're returning your rings and eloping to Hawaii. Right, Daniel?"

"Honolulu here we come," he says, toasting her with his bottle.

"Fine. No pop culture references. Agreed?"

"Agreed," she says firmly, and Daniel nods around another mouthful of beer.

They seem to be ruling out far too many things, Sam thinks, because suddenly the only sound again is the soft crackling of the fire. Daniel's gone quiet in thought, but she's pretty sure even he's got nothing.

"Google," Jack says, finally.

"Mm," Daniel says, and drains the rest of his beer before sitting up. He crosses over to them and takes the rings out of her hand, his fingertips light against her palm. He puts them carefully back in the open box and sets his empty bottle beside it.

"Later," he says succinctly, leans down and strokes her calf as he leans into Jack for a kiss. She smiles and closes her eyes on the sight of them, dozing off with both of their hands warm on her skin.

*

**_Coda_ **

The sales guy is the same one who sold them the rings to begin with; she recognises his distinct red hair and slightly harassed but still bright smile.

She walks over to the cash register and offers her own smile, to him and the petite sales girl chatting animatedly to him behind the counter. Ridiculous how she can face down Egyptian gods and exploding suns but she feels awkward collecting her own wedding rings. "Um, hi. I'm here to pick up-"

"The rings," he says, before she can get any further. She smiles a little more easily.

"You must have more than just ours."

The sales girl smiles. "Oh, but yours are the most interesting."

Sam watches the guy reach below the counter and hopes to hell she's not blushing. "Oh?"

"Oh, yes, I mean- um," and then the sales guy helpfully interrupts with;

"Here we go." He sets the box on the counter and opens it; there's the row of slim platinum bands, becoming more familiar each day.

She checks them one by one, looking at the detail as closely as she would a set of control crystals: rolls each of them carefully between her fingers, reading the inscription in small precise letters on each set, half on each ring. They're elegantly done, as promised, engraved on the inside where the words will hide against her skin, and Jack's, and Daniel's.

_If three stand shoulder to shoulder against the gods, happy together / the gods themselves are helpless against them while they stand so._

She replaces the last ring carefully in the box and looks up again and smiles. "Perfect. Thank you."

Let them be an interesting story, then, even if it's not the one they'd really like to tell.

**


End file.
